


“do you want to come too?”

by clickingkeyboards



Series: one hundred ways to say 'i love you' [77]
Category: Murder Most Unladylike Series - Robin Stevens
Genre: Fluff, Fluff and Humor, Friendship, Gen, Irony
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-11
Updated: 2021-01-11
Packaged: 2021-03-16 02:33:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,419
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28699218
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/clickingkeyboards/pseuds/clickingkeyboards
Summary: As Lavinia organises for Kitty and Beanie to spend the Christmas of 1936 with her and her family, they start a running joke about Lavinia's 'unrealistic' standards for her ideal boyfriend: communist, uncaring to Lavinia's dislike of being feminine, and attainable.Canon EraWritten for the seventy-eighth prompt in the '100 ways to say "I love you"' prompt list by p0ck3tf0x on Tumblr.
Series: one hundred ways to say 'i love you' [77]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1533164
Comments: 1
Kudos: 14





	“do you want to come too?”

**“Do you want to come too?”**

“Oh, thank you, Lavinia!” Kitty said, dramatically throwing herself down at the foot of her friend’s bed. “Mummy and Daddy made such a terrible fuss, they’re absolutely  _ con _ vinced that Binny and me can’t be at home while Mummy is on bed rest, and I don’t want to spend Christmas with our beastly aunt.”

“Instead you’re stuck with Patrica and my father, which is so much better,” she replied, her voice dripping with sarcasm. “What’s the look for?”

Kitty huffed, folding her arms over her chest and staring up at the blotchy paint on the ceiling. “I’m worried about Beans. Poor thing, she’s going to be stuck at home with a sick mother and a worrying father, and not a penny for Christmas dinner because it’s all been spent on medical treatment. Not a bit of justice in that, is there?”

With her lips pressed together, Lavinia nodded. “Not a bit. This is turning out to be such a beastly Christmas! Daisy and Hazel off fluttering around Egypt with  _ Amina _ , having the time of their lives and probably either solving murders or getting murdered themselves.”

“Don’t say that around Beans,” Kitty warned. “Or anything about death for that matter. Oh, why did it have to happen to poor Mrs Martineau?”

“God hates us all.”

Rolling her eyes, Kitty glanced at her half-packed case. “Oh, I ought to finish packing. Can I leave this dress here, do you reckon? Or are your folks wanting to take us somewhere fancy?”

“Apparently someplace fancy is on the menu, so you’ll need something awful and frilly,” she replied, reaching for the crumpled letter on her side table. “Some new fancy restaurant, my father knows the owner.”

“What’ll you be wearing?” Kitty asked, smoothing out the silk material of her smartest dress.

Feigning throwing up, Lavinia pointed to a dark blue dress hanging on the wardrobe. “That  _ thing _ . Hellish. I’d much prefer trousers.”

“Good luck finding a boy who doesn’t mind improper girls, then,” Kitty said, flourishing her hands as she folded the skirt of her rose-coloured frock. “ _ And _ a boy who likes your ridiculous Bolshevik nonsense. I imagine men like that are hard to come by.”

“I’ll find one.”

Kitty scoffed. “While you’re making your list of impossible qualities for a man to have all at once, add  _ loyal _ to the list.”

“I’m sorry about Hugo,” Lavinia said sincerely, leaning forward and watching her friend precisely pack her case with sharp anger. “He was a cad.”

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Okay.”

The door to their dormitory opened then, and Beanie crept inside as if trying to make herself invisible. Kitty noticed, as she always did, and whipped around to face her best friend. “Beans? What’s wrong?”

Beanie shrugged. “Daddy said that Mummy will be in hospital over Christmas.  _ Over Christmas _ . I don’t want to go to the hospital anymore, and I told him so!”

Kitty rushed to her feet and over to Beanie, pulling her best friend into a hug and stroking her hair. “Oh, Beans, I’m so sorry. That’s awful,” she said, looking at Lavinia helplessly and at a loss of words to say.

Surprisingly, Lavinia looked completely assured in what she was about to say. “Beanie,” she said gruffly as if swallowing the emotional half of her voice, “Kitty is staying with me for the hols. Do you want to come too?”

“Really?” Beanie stared at her with enormous, earnest eyes, and breathed, “I really can?”

“Of course!”

With a shriek, Beanie threw herself at Lavinia sitting on her bed. “You’re the BEST!”

Kitty smiled and rolled her eyes, a sad look in her eyes as she regarded Beanie, who was tearful but giggling. “That’s that sorted, then. You ought to call your people, Lavinia.”

“When Beanie lets go, I will.”

* * *

“Did we tell you about Lavinia’s dream boyfriend?” Kitty asked two days later, sitting down and sorting out her hair after stowing her bag on the racks above their head on the train.

Lavinia reached across their compartment to thump her on the arm. “Go  _ away _ , Freebody.”

Kitty stuck out her tongue, and Beanie cocked her head. “No? What do you mean?”

“I said that I’d rather wear trousers, and Kitty told me good luck finding a boy who won’t mind that,” Lavinia explained. “Then we added that said boy also needs to approve of or at least not mind my communist views. What was it you called it, Kitty?”

“Bolshevik nonsense,” she replied with a grin. “And he has to be loyal, which is apparently hard to come by too.”

With a thoughtful look on her face, Beanie said, “Maybe a boy who will run away to fight in an uprising with you.”

Lavinia sighed. “Oh, I  _ wish _ . Maybe I’ll fall in love with a Spanish communist soldier.”

“Good luck,” Kitty said scornfully. “While we’re at it, he’ll need to have some personality similarities to Lavinia. You know, so he doesn’t go utterly mad.”

Softly, Beanie suggested, “Outspoken?”

“Nice word for it, Beans.” Kitty took off her hat and fixed her hair, stretching out stockinged feet to rest on the opposite seats beside Lavinia. Her smart shoes were abandoned on the smartly carpeted floor.

“Daisy and Hazel have all sorts of weird connections, maybe they know someone,” Lavinia said, smiling at Beanie, who was awkwardly shifting in her newest blouse.

“Can you imagine that phone call?” Kitty laughed, miming a handset with her free hand. “‘Daisy, Hazel, do either of you know an obnoxious communist who would willingly put up with Lavinia existing?’”

Lavinia rolled her eyes and said, “At which point Daisy laughs and hangs up.”

“What other requirements can we think up?” Kitty asked, leaning against the window. “Um…”

“I know!” Beanie said, grinning. “Lavinia once said that she couldn’t stand to date a boy from the country. They’ll all flowery and don’t know about the world, she said.”

“I stand by that! You need to watch some flicks and just… consume popular culture, otherwise you go mad.”

With a sigh, Beanie shook her head in joking disapproval and said, “That is a wide assumption to make about people from the country.”

“It’s  _ true _ ,” she replied stoutly, sending both Kitty and Beanie up in fits of giggles.

“We have said so many requirements, there is probably only one person in the world who fits them all,” Beanie pointed out.

“In the  _ entire world _ ,” Lavinia echoed, pretend annoyance in her voice. “Thanks for the confidence boost, Beanie.”

Kitty laughed. “Sorry to bring geography into this—”

Pretending to collapse across their seat and onto where Kitty was resting her feet, Lavinia whined, “No, not  _ school _ !”

Beanie giggled. “Come on, Lavinia!”

“—he probably lives in some weird obscure country,” Kitty finished, rolling her eyes. “Finding him will be like throwing darts at a map.”

Miming throwing one of the aforementioned darts, Lavinia said, “Yugoslavia!”

“Ah, yes, a communist from the East Indies!” Kitty joked.

Beanie frowned. “I’m trying to think of faraway places. What’s the one shaped a bit like this?” She held up her arms, fingers joined a crooked upside-down triangle. “It’s a bit under Russia.”

“You mean India?” Giggling at her best friend with such a concentrated look on her face as she tried to make the shape of a country with her hands, Kitty said, “It’s not that far away! That friend of Daisy and Hazel’s, the other detective, he’s Indian.”

“Hm… what about…” Beanie clapped her hands once, and then held up her left hand in a curving shape. “The long thin country! It does down like this all the way down the left.”

Kitty raised her eyebrow. “Chile?”

“No, thank you, I have a cardigan on,” Lavinia replied, looking out of the window and away from Kitty’s disappointed look at her pun, and Beanie’s gasping giggles.

* * *

“I don’t know why this only just occurred to me,” Kitty said loudly on Christmas Day, turning to face Beanie with wide eyes, and pointing across the room to Lavinia and George, “but I am either psychic or the unsuspecting victim of an elaborate prank.”

Beanie followed Kitty’s pointing finger to George Mukherjee, who was sitting beside Lavinia while talking at length with Alexander about some book or another. “Oh! You really only just realised?”

Lavinia looked over at them and rolled her eyes. “Oh, for god’s sake.”

The three of them ignored the confused looks from around the room, exchanging amused glances until one of them burst out laughing.


End file.
